


Murderer

by orphan_account



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25724263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Stan had never taken a life, but for thirty years he felt like he did. That kind of guilt doesn't go away easy.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Murderer

**Author's Note:**

> There's some vomit, which turns to vomiting blood, in here so be warned.

Stanley was attending his own funeral. He knew that. His mother was there, a few feet away from him, mourning _him._ Filbrick had not attended.

But he still thought of Stanford the whole way through.

He refused to socialize with anybody very long, part worried someone would catch on and part not able to hear anyone call him _Stanford._ That was his brother's name and he was _ruining_ it.

His mom was the only one who he couldn't push away. She just looked absolutely broken at the loss of her son, and she was his _mom_ for Pete's sake, he couldn't just walk off. So he let her hug him, though he didn't hug back. He kept his fists clenched in his pockets. But he did let himself cry.

For the first time in years he let himself cry about how just plain fucked his life was. And he let her believe he was crying over the "loss" of Stanley Pines. He doubted Stanford would cry for him if he died. Hell, he probably wouldn't cry for himself either.

As the coffin lid was shut, he allowed himself to mourn the possibility that his brother was already dead. That it was all a fruitless venture. That he'd killed his own brother.

Getting one last look at the burned and unrecognizable cadaver, he pushed the thought away. If he doubted, he wouldn't work as hard. And he had to work harder than he ever had in his life.

And that's when the cadaver started to melt.

As if made of wax, the burns melted away to reveal Stanford's dead face. And that melted away as well, showing bone. The lid slammed shut and the coffin dropped into the ground and everybody turned to him.

He could see it in their eyes.

They knew.

They knew everything.

His mom turned to him. She had still tears in her eyes.

"You're a murderer."

Her voice broke and she broke down in tears.

He couldn't do anything. Couldn't move couldn't speak couldn't think. Everything felt weighed down as he sunk to his knees.

He pressed his palms to his eyes. He did not want to cry.

And then he started to choke.

He coughed and gagged until he spat out a glob of molten gold filled with shiny blue eyes.

And then it kept coming up.

It pooled and burned around his knees and he spat up more gold and eyes than he thought he had blood in his body.

It kept coming and coming and now it was mixing with blood and everything else was gone. The world all fell away and was replaced with blinding blue light reflecting off the gold he kept spitting up.

For hours it kept coming up, eventually entirely overtaken with blood.

He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and looked up, groaning.

The graveyard and blue light had been replaced by an endless field filled with aloe and tassle flowers and eyes. Endless eyes.

And then he woke up.

He took a sharp breath and stared up until he registered where he was.

Rocking.

The boat.

On the ocean.

With Stanford.

He could hear him breathing.

He'd forgotten how loudly Stanford slept.

He knew he wouldn't get back to sleep too soon, so he went out on deck. He didn't even grab his glasses. It was still dark, and pretty cold. The cold helped his frayed nerves. Made him feel more aware and present in reality.

He'd gotten so engrossed in staring at the sky and mulling over that dream that he didn't notice he had company right away.

And when he did he jumped nearly 10 FT in the air.

"Fucks sake, Sixer, don't do that!" He glared and his unapologetic brother. "The hell are ya doin out here anyway?"

"I could ask you that exact same question." Ford shrugged and leaned on the rail next to him.

"Couldn't sleep. You?"

"You stomping around woke me up."

"Mm. Sorry bout that, I guess." Stan sighed and looked back at the sky, contemplating.

And that's how Stanford knew something bothered him. He rarely apologized, and he never sounded so... _Subdued_ when he did. He normally sounded angry and it was kind of a gamble whether he meant it or not.

"Something bothering you?" Ford would normally speak with more attention to grammar, but he was tired and frankly what is grammar to a man with 12 PHDs?

"Now why in hell would ya assume that?" Stan looked Ford in the face. He sounded annoyed but he didn't really look it.

"Last time you were up this late it was to drink. Now you're stargazing. That's not quite like you."

"Can't a guy take up a hobby without getting an interrogation? Maybe getting old has made me appreciate my surroundings, ever think of that?"

"Point out the North star."

Stan realised that without his glasses, he definitely couldn't point out the North star. He wasn't even entirely sure where North was.

After some silence, he relented. A bit. "Alright, maybe I don't appreciate my surroundings. Doesn't mean something is up."

"If you don't want to talk about something, you can just say so. You don't have to deny that it exists." Ford sounded all too matter-of-fact.

"I hate when you talk like you're giving a lecture, you nerd."

"You know you'd be lost without me."

"Lost in paradise, maybe."

After that the conversation died down a bit and they both looked up at the sky. It was beautiful this far out, though all Stan saw were a couple blurry lights and some smudges of color. 

Though, the silence didn't last long. Being outside with someone at 5 AM tended to draw things out of you.

"I felt like a murderer, those thirty years."

The sun was starting to come up when he spoke.

"What?" Ford broke out of whatever thoughts he was having to look at Stan.

"Those thirty years, working on the portal. I felt like I'd killed you. And was continuing to kill you. And that weird hell dimension you were catapulted into, if it was anything like Weirdmageddon, it was probably _worse_ than death."

"It wasn't your fault Stan, and besides, some of the dimensions I visited were quite nice. If not infuriating." He briefly thought back to the M Dimension and grimaced.

"Yeah." Was all Stan gave as a reply.

"I mean it, Stan. It was _my_ hubris. I saw all the signs and ignored most of them. And even when I didn't, I still didn't dismantle the machine. Out of pride. Everything that happened to me, I brought on myself." He put a hand on Stan's shoulder, wishing he didn't remember the burn on the other.

"If anything," He went on, "I should be the one who feels guilty. I invoked a demon, built a doomsday machine, branded you, and helped cause the apocalypse."

"Don't you go blaming yourself for all that shit. Wasn't yer fault, ya just got fleeced is all."

"Hypocrite."

"Shut it." Stan lightly punched him in the shoulder, with the beginnings of a smile on his face.

The sun was almost all the way up.

"Only if you quit blaming yourself for all that."

"You first."

"How about we both do that, while I make some coffee."

"Fair enough. You do that, Sixer."

By the time Ford came back with two cups of coffee, the sun had fully risen.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact! aloe represents grief, and tassle flower, also known as love lies bleeding, represents hopelessness. I changed those flowers so many times because I kept looking up "flowers that mean x" but if you look up orange lilies it tells you it means pride instead of hatred, which is totally bogus.


End file.
